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Salutations, my friends. And a happy Friday to you! Know what makes this an amazing Friday? I quit my job yesterday. Yes, it’s true, I’m blowing this popsicle stand. I’m out of this bitch, y’all.

More on my exit later.

Let’s talk about what a small world this is. My boss is also planning on getting out of here, she too dislikes this place. I had hoped we could give our notice at the same time so her boss could freak out and panic. Alas, it won’t happen at the same time. It could, however, happen a few weeks apart.

This afternoon my boss had a second interview at an organization which is far more up her alley. Mainly because they’re nice to people and they’re smart. Plus you can wear jeans to work. Also, you don’t have to deal with people who think they’re amazing but can’t figure out how to send an email from Outlook. She showed me her interview schedule yesterday, and wouldn’t you know it, there was a name on there which I recognized. As luck would have it, I used to work with one of her interviewers, Backdoor Lana.

Back when I was a baby working at Investments r Us she was in one of my very first training classes. Her class was amazing! Had a great time with them – mainly being inappropriate and getting drunk with them, and I developed friendships with a number of them. One of them, Harley Davidson, was a bit of a bad boy with green eyes. He rode a motorcycle and went to Sturgis. He smoked weed. He had longish hair. He was a rebel, and he was hot. While he was in the training class, he had a girlfriend and was off limits. Months later he and his girlfriend broke up. We started flirting over email, and talked about how we’d hook up if we ever ended up in the same state – he worked out of the West Coast office.

Then BLAM! I got sent out to the West Coast for 2 weeks for work. We were gonna bone.

At that time his roommate was Backdoor Lana and they’d hook up every once in awhile. Typically she was the one who would make the first move, and he’d go along with it because he was a dude and he wanted to get laid. As she and I were friends she would tell me about hooking up with him and she said she knew we’d been emailing and she highly recommended a romp with him. Thumbs up, she’d make herself scarce.

Um. Weird, but whatever.

Long story short, we boned.

Next day she wanted to hear details, I didn’t tell her. She asked me if we did anal. “UH, NO!” was my response (or something like that because uh, no). Then she went off for about 20 minutes about how much she loved it and how great he was at it and how she couldn’t sit down the next day, but she couldn’t get enough. I passed on the butt love from him. Even the next time I flew out there and boned him again. He was gifted, that was for sure, but I’m not into backdoor loving. Not my bag.

Shortly after the last time I was out there she announced to him that she was in love with him and she wanted for them to date exclusively. He had always been straight with her about just being fuck buddies with her. As you can imagine, it put all kinds of strain on their relationship. He ended up moving out. He met a girl. He’s now married and has a few kids.

And now she’s a senior executive at this firm and she could potentially be my boss’s new boss.

There’s something so freeing about knowing you’re going to quit your job. Especially when said job is stupid and you don’t have a lot of respect for the people you work with. What’s even better is knowing your boss is also planning on quitting and people are going to freak the freak out. LOL!

I’m not even sorry.

For the last 2 years there have been conversations about replacing an archaic system. The system was built in 1832 before the introduction of computers. Frankly, the Walkman (which is dead) is more advanced than the technology we use in house. So these conversations started 2 years ago about doing a tech transformation and basically we’ve gotten nowhere. Funding? Don’t have it yet. Head of IT? Quit almost a year ago. Project plan? What project plan? It’s a fun time. Because of my role I was sucked into the conversations. The meetings were AMAZING because we had the same conversation in every meeting for the last 6 months. Having this group lead a tech transformation is kinda of like watching the group who tried to put the FYRE festival together. Only those guys were kind of funny and there was so much white privilege and it happened on an island. In this case they also have ZERO idea of what they’re doing and they think they’ll be able to pull it off in a year. Wonder who will play the role of the guy who was ready to give some blowie’s to get all the water out of customs?

This afternoon my boss and I were pulled into a meeting with a few of the leaders. The focus was on coming up with a “Talk the talk” plan. That’s what they called it. It’s essentially a stupid name for a communications plan. At the beginning of the meeting my boss’s boss turns to me and says, “Catherinette, why don’t you remind the group where we left off in the last meeting.” Um, what? This is not my meeting. This is your meeting, why don’t you remind them? I quickly pulled something out of my ass and made some amazing shit up. Then we proceeded to have the same conversation we had a few weeks ago. Amazing. My boss was fuming and I just gave her a big smile and kept going.

My boss’s boss kept volunteering me to take the lead on some of the activities. And you know what? I was delighted to do it! Let me volunteer for more, let me volunteer for all of it! Know why? Because in a few weeks when I give my notice they’ll be left wondering what happened. I’m not going to do any of the silly work.

Know what’s even better?? When they try to give my boss all the work and she says to them, “you can suck a bag of dicks,” and also resigns.

What’s new on my end is that the dude who once was my work boyfriend is a complete idiot and I think he’s missing some brain cells. He’s dumb. Like legit dumb. He’s also on the cusp of getting fired. And he’s creeping me out because he’s in love with me and it’s totally obvious – even people on my team have said something. Most recently after a leadership team meeting when he commented several times on how much he likes my hair.

[insert side eye here]

Listen, I know I’m irresistible and stuff, but imma pass on you. No want. I don’t care for people who are dumb. My tolerance drops a whole lot for their stupidity. It used to be fun to flirt and chat with him, and then when I realized he was a bit of a Dumb Dumb I stopped flirting. Now every single time he comes into my office I take the opportunity to talk about my boyfriend and his dreamy blue-green eyes and how much fun we’re having and did I mention I have a boyfriend? Also, I have a boyfriend. Etc. boyfriend.

For the last few months he’s been getting some tough feedback on his inability to do his job. The feedback is legit. He seems to either not get it at all or lacking the ability to absorb what he’s hearing. He always has an excuse for why something didn’t get done, and it’s always to blame someone else. He says he can do the job, but then will ask the dumbest question on the planet. There are a lot of confused faces when he does that.

Yesterday afternoon we had a leadership team meeting where we discussed sharing some feedback with the rest of our team. We agreed that we’d act as a united front and hold off on telling the rest of the team the news until the team meeting. He interpreted that as, “I must now go and tell my team.” Only he did it in a way that made everyone defensive and they’re throwing up all kinds of drama and they’ve started talking to everyone else and now there’s all sorts of paranoia and swirl.

Did I miss something? When did “don’t say anything” turn into “go and tell everyone?” Me know understand.

Pretty sure that when he gets fired in the coming weeks he’ll say he never saw it coming. Even though our boss has been crystal clear by using terms such as “this isn’t working” and “why do I have to keep asking you to do the same thing over and over again” or “why did you miss that deadline after I told you it was a priority” or “when you were off at happy hour I had to stay late do do your job.”

Lord have mercy! How is one to resist a set of dimples and a pair of dreamy blue eyes? Instead one finds ways of luring those dimples and dreamy blue eyes into her office. While there, she makes lots of terrible jokes, just so she can see the dimples on full display.

Kids, my work husband, The Cyclist, is a full fledged dreamboat. He typically wears suits in the office – and he fills them out pretty well. A few weeks ago I saw him in a pair of jeans and a polo shirt. Far out. He’s packing some serious guns. We were at an all day event and I found myself drifting towards him several times that day. I had to pay attention to not sitting too close to him and “accidentally” smacking his arms. You’ll be pleased to know I controlled myself.

Monsieur le Baguette knows all about him. The day I met The Cyclist I told MlB he was like MlB only with a suit and tie. Totally true. People who have met both of them have said how much they seem alike. Not in looks, mind you, but in their personalities. MlB and I are both, shall we say, doughy. The Cyclist is full muscle, at least that’s what it looks like to me. He’s meant for climbing on (like a fucking jungle gym), where MlB is meant to snuggle with. A few weeks ago MlB came into the office and I introduced him to everyone on the team. When he met The Cyclist he turned to me and said, “is this work me?” It was somewhat strange to see them in the same room and watch them shake each other’s hands. Almost Twilight Zoneish.

In some ways it’s convenient to have two of them. Since MlB and I live in different cities and only see each other a few times a month I get to have him some of the time, and then I get to gawk at The Cyclist during the rest of the time. Seems totally reasonable and acceptable to me.

Good call or bad call? I invited The Cyclist to go to a full day off site training program with me.

Ah, the secret boyfriend. So secret he doesn’t even know about it. Is it cheating if you have a real boyfriend and a secret boyfriend at the same time? No lines crossed – except for when you stare into his dreamy green eyes a second too long.

The Cyclist joined our team about a month ago. When I met him during the interview he reminded me so much of Monsieur le Baguette (MLB). Two primary differences, The Cyclist looked smashing in a pin stripe suit with suspenders (swoon with me now) and I’ve never seen MLB in a suit; and MLB has dreamy blue green eyes where The Cyclist has dreamy green eyes. They’re both divorced. They both have kids the same age. They seem to have a similar sense of humor, not 100% sure of The Cyclist’s since he and I haven’t gone out and gotten drunk – yet.

Every morning he has to walk by my office and he’ll pop in to chat for a few minutes. We were the last 2 in the office on Friday afternoon, and talk turned to happy hour and where we like to go drinking. I had mentioned I was heading out but wasn’t feeling it since MLB and I had gone out the night before and I had woken up still drunk. “Morning sex is the best,” he said to me. “Ugh. I was too hungover to do anything this morning.” I replied. “I don’t want to know,” he responded.

Yes he fucking does.

So whatever, we went off our separate ways after agreeing to go out and grab a drink sometime.

I went home to an empty house as MLB had gone off for a boys’ weekend which was basically a 2 day bender. Yesterday morning when we were texting he told me he was planning on leaving early and wanted to come and stay with me. Um, yes. We had a nice night. I rocked it as the little spoon, he hogged the bed, he was adorable. Usually, when he sleeps over during the week he gets up when I do and feeds Mr. Bojangles then makes me coffee. Think the bender got to him as he was dead to the world. When I woke him up to tell him I was leaving he tried to pull me back into bed with him. Tempting, but dating him is expensive and I gotta pay my bills.

Sitting at my desk this morning and the emails start popping through from The Cyclist. Questions about how the weekend went, plans for the week, etc. A secret romance is blossoming.

Everybody, I have an exciting announcement: yours truly is getting married!! That’s right! For the first time in about 3 years I’m going to have myself a work husband. So excited!!

There’s something so special about the relationship between work spouses. There’s a fine balance between friendship, intimacy (in a mostly non-sexual way), and professionalism (kind of). Your work spouse is the one who you know can keep a secret, who you give pep talks to when they’re feeling blue and who’ll do the same for you, the one who you trouble shoot with, and celebrate with when one of you has a win. They’re the ones you have secret exchanges with in meetings. Kind of like a work bestie – only with way more flirting.

In the past I had Disney and I had Folgers. I even had a boss with dreamy blue eyes who I was promoted above and then I made him sit next to me and we would distract each other from work for ages and now when I see him I want to climb in his lap and tell him to hold me. Actually, I wanted to do those things when we worked together. Alas, he was married. He still is. God damn it.

My new work husband, or maybe he’s a secret work husband since he doesn’t know about it yet, has just been hired. He wears pin striped suits with suspenders. He is funny and charming. He is sharp. We’re going to hit it off and soon we’ll be off at lunch excluding the other leader who has a shitty attitude about life. I can’t even wait!

He reminds me of Monsieur le Baguette a little bit. Only a bit more conservative and with dimples.

A real life boyfriend and a real life secret work husband. Both with dreamy eyes and charming personalities. What could possibly go wrong?

Aw, the joys of coming back to work from a 3 day weekend. Have you ever noticed there’s still 5 days of work that has to get done and you end up cramming it into 4? Or is that just me? Listen, don’t get me wrong, I’d totally take the long weekend over having to sit in my cell office with horrible lighting.

This afternoon I had a one on one with one of my direct reports. She proceeded to tell me how overwhelmed she was by all of the work she had to do. Maybe I’m crazy, but 3 projects really isn’t that big of a workload. Her pace is about as fast as a snail’s and she was used to being able to get away with that until I came around. I’ve got some expectations on pace: get your shit done. Stop shopping on line and talking to your friends all of the time and do your god damned job.

She burst into tears in my office while she cried about how she had so much to do at work and at home and she wasn’t getting down time. I handed her a box of tissues and controlled my eye rolling as best as I could. On the inside I was shouting, “stop crying and do your work.” On the outside I just blinked and nodded.

This work is not that hard. Really, it’s not. And if you’ve been sitting on something for 2 weeks because you don’t know how to do it and the deadline is coming – guess what? I’m not going to move the deadline. That shit is on you to figure it out or ask question. Ignoring something isn’t going to go away. It’s like an STD, you can’t wish crabs away. You also can’t wish your work or deadlines away.